Running on Muscle Memory

If I were inspired more than I plan to be, I could do a cartwheel. That’s because I did about a trillion cartwheels from the time I was in preschool through adulthood. Haven’t done a cartwheel in a decade or so, but I trust that my body just knows what to do.

Turns out, for me anyway, launching a school year in the classroom seems to be the same. My muscle memory has pulled me through these past two days. This is, mostly, a really good thing. But … there is at least one drawback so far to relying on automaticity. 

The good news first: Kagan groups, over planning, and lots of student talk still work. Through the middle of next week, it’s all team and classroom culture building before we dive into content. I’ve intentionally planned too many activities because there will be no downtime, and I really need students to connect and engage with each other before we do difficult stuff together. 

Their happy chatter warms my heart, and kids are still so darn funny, but what I’m really trying to do is lower their affective filter and build a foundation of safety and support. A couple classes are still pretty quiet, and I’ll keep coaxing them until they are ready to share their voices.

The bad news: Muscle memory cuts both ways. I automatically do the effective things I used to do, as well as the practices that are no longer effective or necessary. Case in point: I needed to prep lessons for co-creating classroom expectations. I opened a blank doc and took off. And about a minute later, I remembered that I don’t need to spend a couple hours making lesson plans and materials. I clicked over to Diffit, asked for lessons on co-creating classroom expectations, instantly received a bunch of stuff, reviewed and edited that stuff, and five minutes later, I had everything I needed. Early on in this journey, I declared that I would use AI well, but these tools didn’t exist when I left the classroom, and it will take a while for this old dog to learn that particular trick.

Also not great, I wore one of my favorite outfits on the first day of school because that’s what I do. Here’s a tip for new teachers: Don’t wear the colors of the rival school on the first day back. I didn’t even think about that - just muscle memory - but I certainly will from now on!